The Envelope, Please

It’s been an eventful season. For the first time in recent memory the best picture Academy Award hopefuls are broadly popular: with critics, with moviegoers and with members of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, who anointed a revolving list of titles with front-runner status in the monthslong run-up to the Oscars on Sunday.

The panoply of choices for best picture — at least six of the nine were true contenders — has made for lively debate and difficult decisions on the Oscar ballot. On the performance-oriented Oscars broadcast (on ABC at 7 p.m. Eastern time), to be hosted by Seth MacFarlane and stocked with a song-and-dance sequence for every age and demographic — Adele, Norah Jones and Barbra Streisand; tributes to “Dreamgirls” and James Bond — there will be the usual mix of kudos and surprises.

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The director Michael Haneke with Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant on the set of "Amour."Credit
Denis Manin/Sony Pictures Classics

For instance, with five previous winners nominated (a first), the best supporting actor category is a tough one to call, and the competition for screenplay prizes gives writers more attention than they generally command in Hollywood. The confounding list of directors chosen as nominees shook up the entire awards circuit, leaving room for one of the also-rans, Ben Affleck, to make a stronger case for his movie, “Argo” (with a little help from one of its producers, George Clooney). But that does little to clarify who will be named best director.

The other best picture options include a debut feature made with nonprofessionals on a shoestring budget far outside the celebrity-industrial complex. But as paradox would have it, Hollywood embraced the resulting movie, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” enthusiastically. Its 30-year-old director, Benh Zeitlin, was welcomed with Champagne by none other than Steven Spielberg, who was about the same age when he first became an Oscar nominee. And the film’s star, 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, has rewritten the rules for ingénues with her preternatural ease in the spotlight.

Also operating outside the system but currying favor with Oscar voters is “Amour,” Michael Haneke’s sober meditation on love and aging. Its star Emmanuelle Riva (who turns 86 on Sunday) may pull off a surprise best actress victory, as much for her earliest roles in seminal films of the 1960s French New Wave like “Hiroshima Mon Amour” as for her newest work. And there’s a possibility that Mr. Haneke may also be given a career best prize for his screenplay. Aesthetes who argue that the Academy does not appreciate haute cinema (French accented, even) can now stand corrected.

Of course many of the marquee prizes will most likely go to more standard fare: a musical, a thriller, a stark procedural, a biopic, a revenge fantasy, a romance, a fable. Even in that group, though, there were some unorthodox choices. Tom Hooper’s tight close-ups of the singing cast of “Les Misérables” didn’t work for everyone, but when they did — as in Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine, widely expected to land her a best supporting actress prize — they were the definition of a memorable screen moment.

After the success of “The Fighter” David O. Russell once again proved that he can turn a traditional story, in this case the boy-meets-girl of “Silver Linings Playbook,” into something offbeat, talkative and compelling, prompting career-defining turns from Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and even Robert De Niro, and making Mr. Russell a dark horse in the adapted screenplay contest. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow got criticism for their dramatization of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty,” but there’s no question that venturing into such recent history is bold filmmaking.

Which brings us, naturally, to Quentin Tarantino. “Django Unchained,” the latest entry in his canon of anachronistic genre mash-ups, is perhaps the Tarantino-iest film since “Pulp Fiction.” A profane and stylish shoot ’em up driven by a couple of good guys gone bad, or vice versa, “Django” can’t claim moralism as its strong suit, but the dialogue snaps. Mr. Boal and Mr. Tarantino are both gunning for a best original screenplay Oscar — which would be the second for both, though Mr. Boal (“The Hurt Locker”) earned his more recently than Mr. Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”). Add in Mr. Haneke and this may be the tightest match of the night.

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The director Ang Lee.Credit
Koji Sasahara/Associated Press

Morality was at the center of “Lincoln,” and so was Tony Kushner’s artfully historical language, especially when delivered, in lengthy monologues, by Daniel Day-Lewis (or barked by Tommy Lee Jones). In tackling “Lincoln” Mr. Spielberg, the most lauded of this year’s crop of filmmakers, admitted serious trepidation; the subject matter, even to him, seemed too grand. But 12 Oscar nominations suggest he did just fine. Mr. Day-Lewis was so indelible as Lincoln that he will probably soon be the first man with three best actor statuettes to his name — and the first performer in one of Mr. Spielberg’s films to win an Oscar.

Still, insiders say Mr. Spielberg is not the front-runner for the best director trophy, nor Mr. Kushner for best adapted screenplay. Their film — like many others in the race — had its detractors, who complained it was too long, too dry, too much of a history lesson. And the campaign his studio ran to woo Oscar voters was judged as heavy-handed, including an appearance by Bill Clinton at the Golden Globes to solidify the idea that this was A Consequential Film.

By contrast Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” was a visual feast with an appealing, uplifting message. It earned fans for its technical wows and for Mr. Lee’s vision in turning what seemed like a profoundly unfilmable story into a theatrical event, in 3D no less. It is a directorial achievement, several awards prognosticators noted, and it happens to have earned more than $500 million worldwide. With several other competitors, like Ms. Bigelow and Mr. Affleck, out of the director’s race, it may be Mr. Lee’s to lose.

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Inside the Oscars Writers’ Room

Melena Ryzik speaks with the comedian Carol Leifer about writing jokes for the Academy Awards telecast.

It’s been a strong year at the box office for nearly all the nominees — six have already crossed the $100 million mark, in contrast to just one, “The Help,” last year — and that may well translate into higher ratings for the telecast. In choosing Mr. MacFarlane, the “Family Guy” creator and writer-director of “Ted,” the producers are clearly hoping to attract younger male viewers, and his teasing promos have suggested he is game to be a little naughty. (Add a “host makes Hitler/Jew joke” tab to your drinking games now.) But Mr. MacFarlane, who released an album of midcentury standards in 2011, is also expected to sing, which means this may be the crooniest, jazz-handiest, razzle-dazzliest, ideally not longest, Oscar spectacle since at least last year, when Billy Crystal hosted.

If Mr. MacFarlane can pull off the mix of showbiz reverence and social-media-age wit, it will be a coup for the Academy. It will have found a likably smooth dude who appeals equally to bros and their moms. Then again, don’t we already have Mr. Affleck for that?

Campaigning for his film with the real-life inspiration for his character, Tony Mendez, at his side, Mr. Affleck revealed himself to be charming, funny and knowledgeable on the Oscar circuit. His comeback story, from phenom to tabloid staple to lauded director, proved irresistible. And in a year when there were a lot of films with both passionate defenders critics, “Argo,” about the cinematic plot to help hostages escape the 1970s Iran hostage crisis, emerged as a consensus choice, a feel-good caper that was hard to poke holes in. (Not that a few people in Tehran didn’t try.) As it racked up the precursor honors, some awards -watchers were puzzled. But will it be any wonder if it takes the best picture prize? In “Argo,” after all, Hollywood saves the day.